


Big Pajamas

by TheBreakfastGenie



Category: The West Wing
Genre: Episode: s03e12 The Two Bartlets, F/M, Rosslyn shooting (discussed)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-12
Updated: 2018-09-12
Packaged: 2019-07-11 13:52:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15973646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheBreakfastGenie/pseuds/TheBreakfastGenie
Summary: "Should I change?""Into what?""I remember a pair of big pajamas."Josh tries to explain why he has pajamas that are too big for him, which means explaining some other things, too.Post-The Two Bartlets.





	Big Pajamas

**Author's Note:**

> I've always been intrigued by at what point in their relationship Josh talked to Amy about being shot, and it fascinates me that the pajamas CJ gave him become a plot device when he's starting to see Amy. I decided to combine these two things, and probably ruin the happy ending of The Two Bartlets in the process. I'm not a Josh/Amy shipper by any means, but writing them together was a fun challenge.

“These really are stupidly big,” Amy said, re-emerging from the bedroom. “You can wear the pants if you want. I couldn’t go two steps without tripping on them.” The oversized flannel pajama pants landed in his lap with a soft thud. “Seriously, where did you get these?”

“They were a gift,” he said distractedly, ignoring the pajama pants. 

“They didn’t come with a receipt?”

“She wasn’t really thinking about that when she ordered them,” Josh said, still sounding preoccupied. 

“Oh, _she_. That explains it,” Amy said, and Josh couldn’t tell if she was being serious or not. He had that problem with Amy, sometimes. 

“It does?” he asked, hoping he could figure out if she was joking without having to ask. 

“When a woman gives you something you wear to bed that’s way too big for you she’s usually making a point.” 

The crude remark finally snapped Josh out of his reverie and he snapped his head around to look at Amy over the back of the couch. He was seated, pajamas still spread over his lap, and she was standing a few feet behind. She’d tried for a sexy-but-comfy look, artfully rolling the sleeves and buttoning strategically, but the pajama shirt really was just comically large on her petite frame. 

“Seriously?” he asked. 

“Speaking from experience.”

“ _Seriously_?”

“No,” she admitted. “Who gave them to you?”

“CJ,” he answered, sounding slightly scandalized. 

“Oh, probably not making a point, then,” she said, slightly chagrined. “Unless you and CJ have some star-crossed love affair in your past you’re not telling me about,” she added, trying to salvage the attempt at a joke. 

“Definitely not,” Josh said. CJ was like a sister to him, and he was pretty sure Amy knew that. “She was just trying to be nice. Kind of a ‘get well soon,’ kind of thing.”

“What, you got the flu and she sent you pajamas?” Amy sounded confused, but only for a moment. “Oh. _Oh_. Oh, shit.” 

Josh shrugged. 

“Yeah.”

Amy retrieved both drinks from the side table and walked around to the front of the couch to sit next to him. 

“Here,” she said, offering one of the glasses. “I forget which one that is, but it tasted stronger.” 

“The navy grog,” he answered, accepting the drink and taking a sip, “and they’re about the same, the other one’s just sweeter.” 

Amy downed a sip of her own drink. 

“I almost sent a card, you know. Or, flowers or something. When it happened. But we hadn’t seen each other in so long. I saw it on TV. It didn’t seem like it was my place.” 

“Didn’t stop a lot of other people,” Josh said. “Donna spent weeks just going through all the deliveries to my office. I think a lot of it got donated.” 

“You didn’t want to keep it?”

“I kept some it. I started looking at it later, just for something to do. But I was still in pretty bad shape at first, and it was starting to spill into the hallway. The Secret Service wouldn’t let them release what room I was in at the hospital so people just sent stuff to the White House.”

“What about the bullet?” 

The question caught Josh off-guard. 

“What?”

“The bullet. Did you keep it?”

“Did I… keep it?”

“It’s something people do.” She paused to reflect for a moment. “At least, it is in the movies,” she added. 

“I didn’t keep it,” he said.

“You didn’t want to use it to show women what a badass you are?” she teased, trying again to recapture the lighter mood from before. He didn’t respond, and for a moment neither of them spoke. 

“You’re gonna see the scars,” he said quietly. 

Amy didn’t answer, so he did what he always did in awkward situations. He tried to fill the silence. 

“I don’t mean to sound presumptuous. It’s just, where this night is headed, and I don’t want you to just, be blind-sided, because it can be—”

“Scars?” she asked, cutting him off. “As in, plural?”

“Yeah,” he said, relieved she had put a stop to his desperate babbling. “There’s the one from thebullet itself. It’s kind of… hard and numb. It’s right here,” he said, pointing to the spot between his ribs. “And there’s a smaller one, on my side, where they put the chest tube in.” He moved his hand lower and to the side. “And…” he paused, trying to figure out what to say. “They opened my chest,” he said finally, “they had to. So there’s, you know, that one.” They’d told him it would fade with time but it had been over a year and there was still an angry, red, vertical line bisecting his chest. 

He swallowed the rest of his drink in one long gulp.

“Sorry,” he said, breaking away from Amy’s gaze. “I didn’t mean to kill the mood. First I cancel our trip and then…” She still didn’t answer. “It’s just, I haven’t really liked someone this much since… and I don’t want to screw it up. I thought if you weren’t prepared maybe… I don’t know, it was stupid.” 

“It wasn’t,” she said, quietly. “It wasn’t stupid.” She finished her own drink, gently taking his empty glass from his hand and setting them both on the coffee table. “You were trying to be considerate.” She cradled one side of his face in one of her hands. He closed his eyes. “I’m just really glad you’re okay,” she said, pulling him toward her. As he leaned into the kiss, he closed his fingers over the palm of his right hand—an absent-minded habit—and felt a small pang of guilt. But that was another conversation. He forced himself to open his hand, and brought it up to find Amy’s hair. He deepened the kiss, using his free hand to push the oversized pajama pants off his lap and onto the floor. After all the spoiled plans, he just wanted to enjoy this night with her. He still had that right. 

There would be time for everything else later. He’d make sure of it. 

**Author's Note:**

> This ended up both shorter and more positive than I thought it would.


End file.
